Mike Patton speaks about his latest project, tetema, and hints at new Faith No More album

Faith No More frontman Mike Patton may be the drawcard for many trekking to Hobart's Mona Foma in January, but he wants fans to know Australian musician and composer Anthony Pateras is the driving force behind their project, tetema.

"This is much more Anthony's baby than mine," says Patton, whose distinctive throaty scream can be heard across tetema's sole album to date, 2014's Geocidal. "All I was trying to do was to fit into the fabric; not dominate, not change the arrangements or the structures too much, and just be a little bit of wallpaper."

Tetema will bring their experimental music to Mona Foma in January.

Geocidal turned out quite differently to the record Patton envisaged when he first spoke to Pateras about collaborating, around eight years ago. Patton says the material Pateras sent him was "far more visceral and processed than expected".

"I thought maybe it would be a piano and vocals record."

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Mike Patton performing with Faith No More in Melbourne last year.Credit:Paul Rovere

That it most certainly isn't. Described by Pateras as addressing "the murder of place", Geocidal is a challenging listen, filled with strange and menacing soundscapes. Patton calls it "world music from another world", making it ideal fare for the left-of-centre Mona Foma festival.

Pateras and Patton initially shaped Geocidal through emails, followed by a couple of "invaluable encounters" in person, where Patton reportedly screamed into Pateras' ear to demonstrate his vocal range. (And what a range it is: at six octaves and half a note, Patton outsings Mariah Carey and Adele).

Tetema's Mona Foma appearance marks the first time the group has performed live. They are the headline act; the only other so far announced is Puscifer, the solo project from Maynard James Keenan, a man perhaps held in equal regard as Patton for his work in progressive metal bands Tool and A Perfect Circle.

"I can't lie to you, I'm a little bit nervous, I don't know how we're going to pull this stuff off," says Patton. Rehearsals will take place in Melbourne in the days before the festival, but the dense, intricately layered album will be hard to translate to a live show, he says.

"To be honest – how should I say? – it's a logistical nightmare," laughs Patton, who has made a 32-year career of challenging himself in genres as diverse as avant-garde metal and classic Italian pop.

In the same way some of us might keep a journal of their dreams, Patton keeps a "master list" of his dream projects. "I go, 'what if I could write a record with Burt Bacharach?' And I write them down and sometimes I look at them the next day and go, 'wow, was I high last night?'"

Most of what is on the list now, he admits, are projects he's already started. But his restlessness can also be to his detriment.

"A few bands I think I've neglected," he says. "Fantomas being one of them, Mondo Cane for sure."

The likelihood of his first band – Mr Bungle – reforming is slim, he says, but then he said the same thing about Faith No More, who last year released their first album in 18 years: the solidly received Sol Invictus. Is another imminent?

"I don't know whether or not we're going to attack it, but there is some stuff we wrote around the time of the last one and said, 'Why don't we save this for the next record?' So we'll see."

tetema headlines Mona Foma in Hobart, Tasmania on January 21. The festival runs from January 18 to 22.